Demonetisation checked growth in high value notes: PMO

New Delhi: The Prime Minister's Office said on Tuesday that in the absence of demonetisation, the value of high denomination currency would have been Rs 18 lakh crore or 50 per cent more than it was as of September end this year.

"Decreased proportion of HDN in the economy helps thwart corruption and funding of terrorism," the PMO said in a tweet.

It said, "The estimated value of high denomination notes at the end of September 2017 is approx Rs 12 lakh crore. Without demonetisation, the values of HDN would have been around Rs 18 lakh crore today."

Thus, high denomination notes (HDN) have been effectively brought down by about Rs 6 lakh crore -- which is 50 per cent of the current value of HDN in circulation, it added.

The government on November 8 last year had announced the scrapping of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, totalling Rs 15.44 lakh crore. It constituted 86 per cent of the total cash in circulation.

The PMO tweet further said that "0.00011 per cent of India's population deposited almost 33 per cent of the total cash in country".

As per the Reserve Bank data, Rs 15.28 lakh crore or 99 per cent of the demonetised currency was returned, leaving only about Rs 16,000 crore outside the banking system.